1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to a magnetic shift register and a reading method thereof.
2. Technical Art
A magnetic random access memory (MRAM) has advantages of non-volatile, high density, high accessing speed and anti-radiation, etc., which can be used to substitute a conventional semiconductor memory and used for embedded memory applications. The conventional magnetic field writing MRAM device applies metal wires for conducting currents and inducing the magnetic field, so as to switch a free layer of the MRAM. However, as a size of the MRAM decreases, a demagnetizing field effect is quickly increased, and a required write current is greatly increased, so that miniaturization of the MRAM is difficult.
Recently, a spin-torque-transfer (STT) switching technique is provided according to the MRAM technique, which is also referred to as a spin-RAM technique. Such technique is a new generation of magnetic memory writing technique, by which the write current directly flows through a memory cell, and as a size of the memory cell decreases, the required write current accordingly decreases, so that such kind of memory can be perfectly miniaturized. However, such STT switching technique still has disadvantages of inadequate thermal stability of devices, excessive write current, and uncertainty of reliability, etc., resulting in enormous obstacles for mass production of such kind of memory.
In addition, a current-driven domain wall motion theory is gradually disclosed and well developed according to the conventional technique during 1998-2004. A U.S. Pat. No. 6,834,005B1 provides a device structure which can greatly improve a data storage capacity, and the device structure is referred to as a magnetic shift register. Such kind of memory has a chance to substitute a current dynamic random access memory (DRAM), a static random access memory (SRAM) and a flash chip, and can even implement a technique of “disk drive on a chip”. Such memory mainly applies a magnetic record disk similar to a hard disk, which is folded in a three-dimensional stack for storing data, in which the current drives a domain wall motion to record information therein. Therefore, an equivalent bit size thereof can be greatly reduced, and an operation speed thereof exceeds that of a solid flash chip and a hard disk.
FIGS. 1A-1C are operational schematic diagrams of a conventional magnetic shift register. A shift register 100 includes a bit storage region 35, a bit reservoir region 40, a write device 15, a read device 20 and a track 11 for storing and moving data. The shift register 100 is formed by a magnetic metal material such as ferromagnetic materials of NiFe, and CoFe, etc. The track 11 can be magnetized into a plurality of small magnetic domains 25 and 30. Directions of magnetization vectors of the magnetic domains represent logic values 0 and 1 of the stored information. The track 11 of the shift register 100 is serially connected to adjacent tracks. A memory region is separated by one set of the write device 15 and the read device 20, and each of the memory regions includes the bit storage region 35 and the bit reservoir region 40. During a quiescent state for storing information, i.e., a stable state without applying the current to drive a domain wall motion, data of the memory cells (for example, the magnetic domain 25 represents data 0 and the magnetic domain 30 represents data 1) are sequentially stored in the bit storage region 35. Now, none information is stored in the bit reservoir region 40. The read device 20 of the magnetic shift register is connected to the track 11 via a magnetic tunnelling junction (MTJ), and when the sequential bit information is about to be read, a current pulse 45 is input to drive each of the magnetic domains 25 and 30 to generate a domain wall motion (DWM) towards a direction of the electron flow.
FIG. 1B illustrates a transient state, in which the bit information located closest to the read device 20 can be read. In this transient state, the previously read bit information is shifted into the bit reservoir region 40. After all of the bit information stored in the bit storage region 35 is read, all of the bit information is shifted to the bit reservoir region 40. Then, an inverted current pulse 45 is input to shift all of the bit information back to the bit storage region 35. When data is written into the magnetic shift register, the magnetic domain to be written with the data is also shifted to a position where the write device 15 is located by inputting the current pulse 45, and now the write device 15 also shifts a fringe field of a specific direction to a write position via another writing line according to the DWM, so that the magnetic domain is switched to a direction of the data to be written. Thereafter, the sequential information of the magnetic domain is shifted back to an original position via the inverted current pulse 45. According to a common knowledge of the memory, the read device 20 is connected to a sense amplifier through a select transistor (which can be a MOS transistor), wherein the transistor occupies a physical area of a Si substrate. Sizes of the magnetic domains 25 and 30 are generally far more smaller than that of the transistor, so that an equivalent bit size of the magnetic shift register is mainly determined by the size of the transistor and a number of the bit information (25 and 30) stored in the bit storage region 35 that is controlled by the transistor. Since the magnetic shift register includes a plurality of bits, the equivalent bit size can be greatly reduced.
FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating a mechanism of the magnetic shift register of FIGS. 1A-1C. Referring to FIG. 2, for simplicity's sake, the shift register 100 can be extended on a straight track, which includes the bit storage region 35 and the bit reservoir region 40 respectively containing a plurality of the magnetic domains 25 and 30. Assuming in FIG. 2, one bit storage region 35 of the shift register 100 records data of four bits that can be shifted to the bit reservoir region 40. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating a read mechanism. Referring to FIG. 3, a current pulse 106 is, for example, input to the shift register 100, so that the magnetic domains 102 and 104 are shifted, and a read device 108 can read bit data from one of the magnetic domains passing through a position where the reading circuit 108 is located. Data to be written into the magnetic domain can be written by a writing circuit.
FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating a conventional mechanism for reading data stored in a magnetic domain. Referring to FIG. 4(a), according to the read mechanism of FIG. 3, a metal electrode 206 is generally used to connect the read device to a peripheral reading circuit (not shown), and a magnetization pinned reference layer 204 of a magnetoresistance read device can be, for example, a pinned reference layer of a MTJ device. The MTJ device includes a free layer structure, a tunnelling barrier and the pinned reference layer structure. The MTJ device contacts a magnetic domain to be read through a magnetic coupling metal structure 202, so as to couple and sense a magnetization direction 208 in the magnetic domain. In other words, the magnetoresistance read device is connected to a corresponding magnetic domain through the magnetic coupling metal structure 202. Referring to FIG. 4(b), another magnetoresistance read device includes a pinned reference layer 204 with a fixed magnetization direction, which directly contacts the magnetic domain through a tunnelling barrier 210, so as to sense the magnetization direction 208 of the magnetic domain, i.e. the magnetization direction 208 the tunnelling barrier 210 and the pinned reference layer 204 form the MTJ device, and the magnetization direction 208 also serves as the free layer of the MTJ device.
In other words, the conventional method of reading the stored data is implemented by directly coupling or detecting the magnetization direction of the magnetic domain, so that the magnetic coupling metal structure 202 is required. If the pinned reference layer 204 of the magnetoresistance read device is too closed to the magnetic domain, the fringe field of the magnetoresistance read device may probably interfere a normal DWM on the magnetic track.
Namely, the conventional reading method still has problems, and developers are still seeking other possible designs and methods.